Friday, October 25, 2013

Fiery Poached fish

Puddings and pies and all things nice are the best things in life but soon enough you realize you have ballooned to an obscene weight and then suddenly you realize you would like to be eat good things with a happy mind and a happy heart.

So this girl started walking 4.6km every morning, started following a strict diet of no chocolates or harmful food for the weight but then again with all that exercise one does need to get some nutrition and fruits and salads alone cannot provide it because even if they do produce nutrition for someone who is a slave to her taste buds one needs to make everything tasty and lets face it with a nation headed towards 50% obesity we must take care of our health.

Here is an easy peasy recipe for lunch or dinner. the secret is in the sauce :)

One starts off with the fish. One has to make slits on each side of the fish to make sure that the marination penetrates the fish rendering a wonderful result.

Marinating the fish is extremely important and so here is where the sauce/marination comes along.
Long ago I had learnt that our Tibetan sisters soak red chili in vinegar along with garlic and ginger and makes it into a paste to make this hot sauce. some even add tomatoes. I make this sauce which is my kitchen staple.

To make marination:
Garlic (the number of cloves would vary greatly as per taste like I always stress on it we all have different taste buds so I used about 5 medium sized garlic cloves , medium as compared to when is generally available here in Calcutta's fresh market )
Dried Red chilies (number varies as per how hot you can handle) I used 3 dried chilies :)
1 tsp Red wine vinegar
Black pepper as per taste
Very little olive oil I suggest 1 tsp
Salt as per taste

Soak the garlic , black pepper , salt and red chilies in red wine vinegar. Set this rest for at least 4 hours to 5 hours and then blend away adding a bit of oil to render it creamy. That one ingredient which gives it a nice twist is some cumin powder rubbed on the fish.

Homemade mustard sauce 2 tsp
Honey 2 tsp
5 jalapeno chopped pieces (had to use the ones from the jar) or 1 whole jalapeno
salt and pepper
3 tsp Extra virgin olive oil if you like it smooth or 2 tsp if you like the sharp taste of mustard :)

Blend everything away in a blender. The mustard gives it a sharp bite while honey mellows down the hotness of the fish.

Back to the fish:

Brush a flat pan with olive oil and place the fish and cover and cook for 1 minute and turn over and cook for another minute. use very little water just so that you get all the marination and use it on the fish else it would get stuck and let it get poached for 7 minutes on each side.

In the end you have a low calorie, healthy nutritious lunch and regular healthy lunches gives you the advantage of indulging sensibly once in a while in utterly butterly delicious goodies.